


A Little Bit of Everything

by theskywasblue



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Fluff, Happy Ending, Jealousy, M/M, Misunderstanding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 02:38:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4943494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When it comes right down to it, I can't give you very much at all"</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Bit of Everything

Laughter rings through the dining hall, and it’s all Dorian can do not to hurl his dinner roll down the length of the table to silence it. The Marquise is saying something to him - asking him some question about spurious rumours she’s heard about the Imperium repeated in sitting rooms filled with clucking hens and bottles of wine, no doubt; but Dorian is having a great deal of trouble concentrating long enough to respond. All he can hear is the Marquis’ precious flower of a daughter laughing at something Cullen has said to her.

 _Again_.

It’s quite understandable, of course. Chantal De Sauveterre is a lovely young woman - even Dorian can’t fault her for that - huge, soft brown eyes, a head full of matching curls, and a sweet, heart-shaped face. She smiles demurely when she speaks, but she’s full of questions about Skyhold and the Inquisition, belying a sharp intelligence that any man with half a brain would find enchanting. Cullen clearly does, at any rate, the way he rushes to answer her, how _actively_ he engages in conversation when, in most other circumstances he’s taciturn, almost aloof. He had been enthused to give her a tour of the battlements when she’d asked, was charmed by her enthusiasm for the stables, and by her seemingly endless tales of all the wonderful sights she had seen on the journey from Val Royeux.

And there, she touches his hand, laughing again. Cullen’s cheeks colour and he makes that all too familiar, nervous gesture, touching the back of his neck…

“Lord Pavus - am I boring you?”

Dorian snaps back to reality, dropping his fork. “Of course not, madam - it’s only…” hastily, he wipes his lips with his napkin, sets it on his plate. The fine dinner that the kitchen staff prepared looks suddenly akin to a plate full of pickled nug’s feet. “I find myself feeling suddenly unwell. If you’d please excuse me.”

Summoning all the dignity he can, Dorian walks the length of the table, attracting more than one curious glance - and even a look of, dare he say, _concern_ from Cullen - before he escapes to the cool freedom of the hallway. Immediately, he finds himself wishing he’d brought his wine glass along for the trip; but no matter, he has more than enough wine squirrelled away in his rooms. _When in doubt, drink_ has been a motto that has served him well for many years.

Unfortunately, with his curtains drawn and the distant sounds of revelry floating up from somewhere below, Dorian soon loses his appetite for wine, which is shocking indeed. Perhaps he really _is_ ill, he muses, lounging irritably on his bed, trying to find something of interest amongst the towering pile of books at his bedside. Of _course_ he was ill - ill in the head for ever entertaining the notion that his... _dalliance_ with Cullen was anything more than a distraction for the Commander. For all the south claimed to be _progressive_ in such matters, that was how it always went. A thousand whispered promises amounted to nothing more than a druffalo’s fart in a high wind; in the end it was always the same.

Irritable and slightly nauseous, Dorian extinguishes the candle at the bedside, and watches the ceiling until sleep steals over him like an assassin.

***

Moonlight through that blasted ceiling gap, turning Cullen’s hair a rich, burnt golden colour. His heart still thundering hard beneath the flesh resting under Dorian’s ear, roughened fingers gently working against Dorian’s scalp as Dorian idly fusses with curls of golden chest hair. Fereldens aren’t half as fastidious about body hair as men in Tevinter, and Dorian finds he is more intoxicated by the difference than he likely should be.

“I’ve never -” Cullen mutters, voice slightly hoarse. “That is - I’ve not…”

“Done that?” Dorian laughs. “Well, I must say you performed admirably for a novice.”

When he looks up, Cullen is blushing, all the way down into his chest and up into his ears. “There wasn’t much _performance_ required. But no, what I meant to say, Dorian, was -”

Dorian sits up, a bit too quickly, as indicated by the sudden head rush he gets. “Now don’t spoil it,” he chides, plastering on the best of his fake smiles. Honestly, the Orlesian mask-makers should mimic his face.

“Spoil?” Cullen chuckles, hesitant, his soft eyes flickering dark with concern until Dorian gently kisses his mouth, breaking off at a knock on the door…

A knock on the door?

Dorian comes awake sluggishly, disoriented by his dream, and drags himself from the bed, staggering to the door. The room is uncomfortably cold and treacherously dark, the fire having gutted out sometime while he was sleeping. When he opens the door to find Cullen standing on the walkway, the reason for his lack of attention to his own creature comforts comes rushing back to Dorian like a barrel going over a waterfall.

“Isn’t there somewhere else you should be?”

Cullen’s brow furrows, tightly. “What? No - the banquet ended hours ago. Are you well? You look pale.”

“I’m perfectly fine, there’s no need to trouble yourself on my account.” Dorian moves to close the door, but Cullen stops him with quick hand; though he looks somewhat abashed about it.

“Please don’t lie to me,” he says; and then, for a moment, it’s Dorian who feels abashed. “May I come in.”

Dorian steps out of the way, though only because these sorts of conversations are best not had where curious ears might hear them. The first thing Cullen does is move to the fire. 

“Maker’s breath, it’s cold in here. If you’re ill -”

“I’m not _ill_.” Dorian cuts him off, prickly. He doesn’t want Cullen here, in the dark of his bedchamber; or, rather, he desperately _does_ , which is the majority of the problem.

“You will be soon if you don’t keep a decent fire,” Cullen mutters. He piles the wood, looks around for a flint, and then seems to come to what should be an obvious realization, turning to Dorian instead. “Could you?”

Dorian lights the fire with a half-hearted gesture, and tries not to look too long at Cullen in the firelight.

“Wonderful.” Cullen wipes his hands, rises back to his feet with only the slight hesitation borne of old wounds. “Now - if you’re willing - I’d like to know why you left the banquet in such a rush. If the Marquise said something inappropriate -”

Dorian laughs, bitterly. “Almost every word that passed her lips was ridiculous, but no. She said nothing that offended me - or at least, nothing I hadn’t heard before.”

“Then -” Cullen flounders, makes that too-familiar nervous gesture which turns Dorian’s guts into a ball of cold lead. “Then you’re angry with me, obviously.”

“I’m not.”

Cullen’s smile is like a wound. “You’re lying again.”

“Well if I wasn’t angry before, I certainly am _now_ ,” Dorian snarls, pacing through what little space his room affords. “I don’t know why you insist on doing that.”

“Doing what?” Cullen asks, a slight hitch of emotion in his voice that only makes Dorian feel worse, as if _he_ is the one who…

“On reading me like a - like a bloody _book_ , when I’m doing my damnedest just to - to - _fasta vass_ , I’m not going to stand in your way, is that what you want me to say? You’ll be very happy, I’m sure.”

Cullen’s hand snakes out and grabs Dorian’s own, halting him. There’s an instant when Dorian’s magic flares in self defence, but he smothers it as Cullen pulls him close, entreating. “With _who_ , Dorian?”

“The Marquis...daughter?” The slight, questioning lilt on the last word is painful. The words seem much more foolish, but also much more damning, hanging in the air between them than they did rattling around in Dorian’s head like stones inside a boot.

Cullen almost laughs, but he seems to catch himself at the last moment, clearing his throat instead. “His daughter? We’ve only just met, Dorian...we’re not... _I’m_ not..why would you think that she and I -”

Dorian tugs on his hand, and Cullen releases him, somewhat reluctantly. There isn’t really anywhere to go, of course; so Dorian ends up sitting on the edge of the bed like a petulant child - a mental image he very much resents.

The silence between them stretches until Dorian is certain he can hear it creak.

“I can’t give you the things that she would,” Dorian says at last, hating the way he can’t lift his gaze from his hands. He’s supposed to be so much better than this, smarter. “When it comes right down to it, I can’t give you very much at all.”

Cullen crosses the room, and kneels, so carefully, on the slightly threadbare rug next to Dorian’s bed, taking both of Dorian’s hands so he can’t stare at them anymore. The look on Cullen’s face is so earnest that it’s an agony to gaze upon.

“That isn’t true,” Cullen says, and Maker help them both but he sounds so _sincere_. “I want _nothing_ that you cannot give me, and please know that I would give you anything you asked in return.”

Dorian crushes his eyes closed, feels Cullen squeeze his hands, entreating.

“The things you say,” Dorian mutters, at last, forcing levity he doesn’t quite feel into his voice. “I don’t know how anyone could resist you when you speak that way.”

He dares a glimpse of Cullen through his eyelashes, and catches the barest edge of a smile turning up the Commander’s lips. “Then stop resisting.”

Dorian huffs, trying to smother his embarrassment with indignation - righteous or otherwise. “Well, you did seem very taken with _Madamoiselle_ De Sauveterre - that wasn’t my imagination.”

Cullen laughs, shaking his head. “She does have a wonderful sense of humour - she reminds me quite a lot of my sister.”

“Your sister?”

“Mia? The one I’m always telling you would adore you, because you’re always making sure I don’t get too full of myself? Or do you just not listen at all when I talk?”

The cold ball of lead in Dorian’s stomach seems to dissolve at the gentle teasing in Cullen’s words - perhaps not completely; it may never vanish completely, if he’s willing to be honest with himself - enough that he no longer feels ill with it; enough that he’s able to smile as he wants to. “To be fair, much of the time we’re together I’m suffering the lingering effects of orgasm. It makes listening somewhat difficult.”

Cullen’s cheeks colour slightly. “Well, that’s important to know, should I ever need to convey any vital information. Now, I would very much like to kiss you…”

Dorian affects his best put-upon sigh. “Hurry up then, I haven’t got all night.”

“That,” Cullen says, warmly, his breath soft against Dorian’s mouth as he leans in. “Is where you are wrong.”

-End-


End file.
